Transitions and Pan's Labyrinth: a layer in the symbolism.

We often cope with certain events; those that are highly distressing or are outside of an individual’s comfort-zone. Television, movies, reading, poetry, porn (hey, I’m not judging). The point is we all have this escapism that keeps us going, as some people say. However, escapism goes deeper than that. In a lot of ways, escapism is a tight grasp to a fantasy that helps us understand reality on a level we are comfortable with. 

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Pan’s Labyrinth is a movie written and directed by the fantasy genius that is Guillermo Del Toro. Set in Spain after the Civil war, Ofelia and her pregnant, biological mother Carmen move in with Carmen’s new husband Vidal. He currently resides in an outpost for the military in order to hunt-down the remaining rebels. Ofelia, discovers an ancient stone labyrinth. 

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There she meets a faun who believes her to be the reincarnation of  Princess Moanna from the underworld. In the fairytale, the princess visited the mortal world, was blinded and had her memory erased from the sunlight. She forgot about her royalty, stayed as a mortal, and died. The king ultimately believes her spirit to come back to the underworld one day. Until then, he builds labyrinths serving as portals for her return. The faun tells Ofelia this and gives her three tasks in order to regain her immortality while her evil step-father tortures and hunts for rebels.

If you have not watched the movie, go watch it. It is both a fantastic nod to mythical lore, as well as a piece against political authoritarianism. There are so much layers to be peeled an analyzed that it would be impossible to discover them all. Go through with this article after you watch.

You watched it? Good. Let’s move on.

Guillermo Del Toro brings us this story as a derivation from the normal adaptation of fairytales, much like those of Disney. The film starts with the telling of Priness Moanna’s tale and eventually the story of Ofelia. Disney’s adaptation of fairytales highlights the good and erases the bad. This is due to the fact that kid’s do not comprehend the bad. Normally, this is seen as a way of censoring content that are otherwise outside of the happy unicorns that kids want to see. 

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However, I believe Disney fairytales are more on letting the kids analyze bad situations in a level that their own young minds can comprehend. Witches, evil kings, monsters and the like are just merely corrupt people at its base and core.  Much like in college classes, it is an introductory stage of the bad reality. Del Toro gives this a highlight throughout the entire movie by showing us that the fairytale world of the labyrinth isn’t the beautiful Disney picture Ofelia would want during her troubled times. Each task she was given had some pretty messed up stuff like the Pale Man eating kids, the toad, and of course, the faun him/herself. This is showing that Ofelia, as a little girl who is more often than not engulfed in fairytales, cannot escape the bad even in the labyrinth. Yet, the tasks needed to undergo the challenges given to her by fawn are those she can comprehend with her fairytale-ridden mind, and therefore she can solve them. The rebel torture, her authoritarian step-father, and her sick mother, however, are out of her own reach. The labyrinth provides Ofelia with hardships she understands and can solve, in contrast to the real world wherein the difficulties are ones she cannot fully grasp and cannot be solved at her young age.

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The labyrinth boils down to one thing: transition. Everything is transitioning. The war in Spain during that time was transitioning to dictatorship under Francisco Franco. This lead to Ofelia, transitioning to the dictatorship of her new step-father. As well as clearing the lines between fairytales and reality for a kid. The labyrinth and faun’s challenges are merely stepping stone to the transition of Ofelia; for her to understand how to fight against those she is afraid of. Transitioning from being under authority, to having authority as a princess. And the labyrinth’s goal is to guide her to where she needs to be. As Del Toro said in his interview regarding the movie, 'A maze is a place where you get lost. But a labyrinth is essentially a place of transit, an ethical, moral transit to one inevitable centre.”

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As I said, this film has several symbolisms and mysteries to be uncovered. One, especially, is the nature of the labyrinth. Whether or not it is true. That, is still under contest. This article of mine merely discusses one of a thousand different ways that Pan’s Labyrinth may be interpreted.

That’s it for now. And thanks for reading.